CES 2011 Winners And Losers

Tech guru and Matrix LLC equity portfolio manager Phil Laverson attended the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show, looking for the latest innovations from the tech industry. During a recent interview, he told Benzinga that he was both impressed and disappointed with the show. “Compared to prior years this year has been amazing,” he said. “For the last five years we've been hearing about all these great things that have not materialized. Now all of a sudden this year it's like…everything that was spoken about back in the boom, from '99 to '01, has finally materialized. It's nice to see these things.” Unfortunately, not all is well in the land of CES. There are dozens of tablets at the show, each with a form factor that ranges from seven inches to eleven inches. “So instead of being disappointed with one specific manufacturer I would say it's a lack of ingenuity,” Laverson said. More importantly, where's the iPhone-killer we've all been waiting for? “I kind of felt that we would see one device that would be a major convergence device besides the iPhone 4 AAPL, that would envelop things and applications like FaceTime, things like that, outside of what we've seen already,” Laverson continued. “The Motorola 4G phone is very nice but it's not something that's a must-have. It doesn't materially change the face of what Evo's already put out there.” While Laverson said that there's a lot of advanced technology out there, the resulting products often fit within the “me too” category. “No one's really differentiating themselves through this cycle right now, and I would say that's the disappointment,” he said. “There [are not any] standout competitor[s].” To hear more from the equity portfolio manager – including his top stocks of CES – don't miss Benzinga's full interview with Phil Laverson.